Lakes Distillery not in the right spirit with new Down Round.

The Lakes Distillery plc raised £1.6m 12 months ago on Crowdcube. It had already raised £1.5m the year before. Valued last year at £44.38m pre money. Just this month they have privately raised a further £1.6m on a valuation of just £36m. So what's happened to those plans?

If you Google The Lakes Distillery, you find a barrage of hits for their listing at the end of 2017 with M&S. This occurred just before the Crowdcube raise; which was a fantastic success. We searched M&S today for their product but drew a blank.

Companies try not to have down rounds for obvious reasons but this one is significant. Accounts for the company are due out this month so it will be interesting to see how they relate to the ones used to entice investment last year.

Here's hoping it is good news. Thanks for the heads up go to anon.

Dreams are made of this - Lakes Distillery launches PR IPO management

The Lakes Distillery Co raised £1.6m on Crowdcube at the end if 2017. They will be an English Whisky producer - given time. Now the rumour mill is in overdrive as they release both PR barrels - an IPO before the end of 2018.

The previous PR batch - the investment by the Finnish giant Eera with the issue of 2.5m new shares seems to have evaporated - which can happen with distilling. Recent investments are on the very small side although the valuation from a year ago appears to gone up 10X . It is difficult to tell.

One thing is for sure, the company has a habit of slightly exaggerating its progress - listings with Tesco for example turn to be a local listing in only 19 stores - although of course this may expand. YoY revenue growth of 80%, as stated on Crowdcube, is now reported in the FT as 43% and if you do the math the total revenue of £9m for 2015/16 and 17 as declared in the Crowdcube pitch, doesnt really compute with the 2017 revenue figure of £4.3m on 43% growth from 2016 if you believe their 80% figure. 

They also claim to have sold the most expensive bottle of new whisky. So what?

So an IPO raising just £15m before the end of 2018 - given the current UK climate and all. Likely - na. Just more PR to promote their brand whilst they wait for the whisky to do its thing. And do they think that a whisky with zero heritage, distilled in England of all places, is going to compete with the real thing. Pull the other one. Tourism maybe, - whisky, no chance.